


Hope to Build On

by angel_in_a_big_blue_box



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M, Nightmares, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_a_big_blue_box/pseuds/angel_in_a_big_blue_box
Summary: John's Nightmares always end the same. But, Harold's reality is different.
Relationships: Harold Finch/John Reese
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Hope to Build On

John wakes with a gasp, his nightmares always end the same, and his eyes fill with tears. He bends his head and tries to bring his hand up, to bite his knuckle, stifle the sob he knows is coming, but he feels another hand come up instead, a gentle pressure turning him from his usual position of facing the door. Another trace of military and CIA training coming back to bite him.

“John?”

John can’t bring himself to turn towards the owner of that concerned, slightly sleepy voice. 

“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

“Mr. Reese, even half-awake, I know when you’re lying to me.”

That name, it’s become something of a joke to them now, should have relaxed all the tension that was coursing through John’s body, but the memory of his nightmare is still too fresh and John tenses even further. The hand on his face moves lower to his shoulder, pulling him a little bit harder, and this time, John allows himself to be pulled along, burying his face in his lover’s neck and dragging his calloused hands along his side, until he can’t tell where one of them ends and the other begins.

“John, what happened?”

John opens his mouth, he’s going to answer the question, but all that slips out is a sob, and suddenly, he’s crying, shaking, and he knows he should let go. He knows he should bottle it up and stop this. That he’s being ridiculous, but he can’t make the tears stop, can’t hear anything but the thundering of his traitorous, ugly heart, and he hates himself for it and he knows that he needs to stop because he’s sure that Harold will think him weak and useless, will probably want him to go. But then he feels those arms tighten around him, one coming up to card through his hair, softly, scratching at his scalp a bit at the end before starting over, while the other rubs down his neck a bit, stopping for a second to massage at the base of his neck, where he holds so much of his tension, before continuing down to rest just below his shoulders, drawing him closer. He feels a kiss being actively pressed to his temple and hears himself whine in return (he’s pathetic. He can’t help it)

“John, I don’t know what you were dreaming about, but whatever it was, I can assure you that it wasn’t real. None of it was real. We’re here. We’re alive. We –“

John draws his arms tighter around Harold, gasping for breath and finally taking one solid breath that isn’t choked with tears. 

“Harold, I need you. Please don’t - ”

“John, whatever you need, it’s already yours. My heart, my soul, my life if you should ask it of me.” 

John squeezes his eyes shut as the vise around his heart clamps tighter.

“NO!” 

He hears Harold draw in a breath.

“I can assume then, that that is what your dream was about, dear?”

John doesn’t answer, he can’t answer. All he can hear is the footsteps of those priceless Italian shoes walking away from him, the words Mr. Reese chasing endlessly through his head and he knows he’ll do whatever it takes to never hear Harold say that to him that way ever again. It takes him a moment for his brain to catch up with the sounds in the room, but when they finally do, he hears Harold, whispering softly in his ear. 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -  
That perches in the soul -  
And sings the tune without the words -  
And never stops - at all –“ 

Slowly, achingly slowly, John peels himself off of Harold, just enough to look him in the eye. He sees that those blue, blue eyes are already fixed on him, despite the stiffness that the angle must add to Harold’s constantly aching neck. He searches that face, those open, clear eyes, for what, he isn’t even sure yet. John doesn’t say anything, can’t speak yet, but it doesn’t matter, because Harold is never at a loss for words and so, he switches poems.

“And now, each night I count the stars,  
And each night I get the same number.  
And when they will not come to be counted,  
I count the holes they leave.”

Dimly, John understands that Harold is trying to give him a message, but it hasn’t processed yet and John’s only just stopped shaking. 

“And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,  
a remote important region in all who talk –“

“My nightmares always end the same.”

Harold tightens his hold, minutely, and it makes John feel like he is standing in the middle of the ocean, with the waves crashing around him, but somehow he is protected.

“They all start different, sometimes, it’s Kara or Mark or Root or Greer, but they always end the same. They end with you leaving. With a stiff, pinched, _‘Goodbye, Mr. Reese’_ and you look at me like I’m a bug or something disgusting that you’ve stepped into, and you leave, you leave, you always leave. You take all the light, and all the things that I thought were solid and you leave, and you leave, and you leave – “

He’s crying again, and he doesn’t know where it came from, he just knows that it’s stupid.

“John, I would never – could never leave you. You’re my home. You’re my hope. To me, you are the thing with feathers. The freedom to be. You never ask for more than I can give, you never resort to tricks or traps, you’ve been so patient, all this time. As if, somehow, you see me as something worthy. Something better. I don’t know what you can possibly see in me. Broken-down, worthless, old, both physically, and mentally beyond my actual years. But it’s a gift you’ve given me. A precious treasure that I could never stand to give up or give away because without you, I have nothing. Every penny, every number the Machine spits out, it’s all meaningless in comparison to you, John. I’ve spent every day of my life getting to you and now that I have you, I will never let you go.”

John tightens his grip around Harold’s middle, trying to mind the old, aching scars, the testament to how strong and perfect this man is. 

“I don’t deserve this…you….any of it. There are better people out there…Grace – “

Harold stops this line of thinking with a delicate kiss. 

“Don’t – “

John bolts upright, suddenly furious.  
“It’s true though, dammit!”

The dam has burst and now he can’t stop himself.

“You’re brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and there’s no way in hell that I can measure up. You’re kind, unceasingly kind, and I’m just a black hole that takes and takes and takes, and you never run out of beautiful words to say to me or treasures to give me, little glimpses of you. How do you do it?! Every single day, I keep holding my breath, waiting for that goodbye, but it never comes. You keep looking at me like I’m your everyth – oh.” 

Harold had moved to a seated position to try and match John’s, though the stiffness in his spine, prevented it from being very comfortable. At that punched out, tiny, ‘oh’, Harold had reached his arms out again, drawing John into them. 

“Amazing. You have all this intellect and all this training and it took a series of worsening nightmares for you to figure out that I want you – no, that I need you, in order to keep on living. You say that I saved you from yourself that day at the bridge John, but you saved me too. You saved me from the nightmare of existing. All I had was the Machine and the numbers. I couldn’t help those people on my own. I’m useless as a runner. But when you agreed to help me, John, you made me feel like somehow, maybe, I could make a difference. You’re a hero, John Reese, in more ways than you’ll ever give yourself credit for and I hope that one day, I can finally make you see that you’re my safe haven. You are my home. I don’t have anywhere to go to, even I were to leave you, because every path leads back to you.”

John could feel the vise around his heart loosening with every word. He didn’t know if he believed them, but Harold had once promised never to lie to him and secretly, John was praying that that had been true.

“John – “

He lifted his head from where he placed it back on Harold’s shoulder, the two men sitting up, facing each other.

“in your arms  
only there, the only stillness  
remember the will,  
allow the pull, tow against inevitable ebb—  
you don't need reasons to live  
one reason, blinking in the fog,  
organically sweet in muddy dark  
incredibly often enough  
it is, it was  
in your arms.” 

John pushed forward, kissing Harold softly, his hands shaking and he knew that he was home.

**Author's Note:**

> I used 4 Poems in here.
> 
> Hope is the The Thing With Feathers - Emily Dickinson  
> Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note - Amiri Baraka  
> A Ritual to Read to Each Other - William E. Stamford  
> Us - Tory Dent
> 
> Sorry, if the boys seem a little OC, I just had this vision pop into my head of John having a horrific nightmare and Harold telling him poems to try and soothe him and then this happened.


End file.
